Ghostbusters

So there's a new Ghostbusters movie on the horizon! Like most people I saw the trailer and was not too impressed. What is impressive is the backlash the trailer has been getting! Wow! Ok - when I saw the trailer I saw a major snoozefest. The ghosts are generic blue blobs, lacking the individuality of the ghosts from the original, the characters seem like one dimensional stereotypes and the jokes just weren't funny. Yawn! By the end of the two minutes or so I was bored, but didn't find myself hating it. To be honest it didn't seem interesting enough to invoke hatred or anything other than a nap. This is where the new Ghostbusters movie gets interesting. This yawn-a-thon trailer has the most dislikes of any trailer on youtube and has invoked the ire of thousands of people. Most notable of these are James Rolfe of AVGN fame, who flat out refused to see it, and Comic Book Girl who begged everyone not to blame women for the impending disaster of Ghostbusters 2016. Why such extreme reactions? For Rolfe, Comic Book Girl and many others, Ghostbusters is one of their favorite childhood films and they have adopted the film as "their own" - a film that captured their imaginations and helped define their childhood. Engaging with a great film or book that invokes something deep within us (i.e. a sense of wonder, adventure, etc.) is an experience that can help to define who people are and can influence them for the rest of their lives. Sadly, some people have trivialized these defining experiences into dollar signs and are so interested in the dollar signs that dance in their heads that they've lost touch with why certain movies do so well (i.e. make oodles of money) in the first place. They've also lost touch with recent changes in technology such as say...the internet, where people who have shared the same experiences watching movies like Ghostbusters can connect and make their voices hear in a way they couldn't before. What happens? When online geek culture sees that Hollywood is doing a lame Ghostbusters remake with no perceptible connection to the original and giving no thought to how much the original meant to so many people, the backlash catches Hollywood by surprise. More interesting, after James Rolfe's video where he refused to even watch the movie, Hollywood is bowing down and trying to address one of Rolfe's biggest criticisms, that they completely ignored how much the original film and cast meant to so many people, by having a get together of the old and new cast and re releasing the original Ghostbusters to try to make some kind of connection between the two! Wow! Gone are the days where Hollywood can just throw any old crap at audiences. Through the internet and social media, geek culture has a voice and won't hesitate to use it if it feels that one of the defining movies of their lives is being stepped upon as Hollywood tries to cash in on the name with a dull-a-rama remake. Social media is transforming the world. It will be interesting to see where it ends up. As for the new Ghostbusters - will I see it? It really seems too dull to care whether I do or don't. Yawn... I do agree with Rolfe and Comic Book Girl though. The movies and books we cherish gave us experiences that helped define us and our lives. Trying to trample our cherished experiences and turn them into cash cows is pretty crappy, and we do need to, and can, send that message to Hollywood.